Sartre, J. P. 1958. Being and Nothingness. London: Routledge.
Schopenhauer, A. [1851] 1970. Essays and Aphorisms. London: Penguin.
Schulz, K. 2010. Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error. London: Portobello.
Shields, D. 2008. The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead. New York: Knopf.
Small, H. 2007. The Long Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smith, R. R. 2011. Driving with Plato: The Meaning of Life’s Milestones. London: Profile.
Songe-Møller, V. 2002. Philosophy Without Women: The Birth of Sexism in Western Thought. London: Continuum.
Sorkin, A. R. 2010. Too Big to Fail: Inside the Battle to Save Wall Street. London: Penguin.
Spengler, O. [1922] 2006. The Decline of the West. New York: Vintage.
Spier, F. 2011. Big History and the Future of Humanity. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Stenger, V. J. 2008. God: The Failed Hypothesis. Amherst, NY: Prometheus.
Sternberg, R. J. (ed.) 2002. Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Tavris, C. & E. Aronson 2007. Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts. London: Pinter & Martin.
Taylor, G. 2006. Deadly Vices. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Tenembaum, Y. 2011. “The Success and Failure of Non-violence”. Philosophy Now 85, July/August: 34.
Thomas, L. 1988. The Wonderful Mistake: Notes of a Biology Watcher. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Velleman, J. D. 1991. “Well-Being and Time”. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 72: 48–77.
Weatherill, R. 1998. The Sovereignty of Death. London: Rebus.
Wilkinson, R. & K. Pickett 2009. The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. London: Allen Lane.
Wilson, F. 2011. How to Survive the Titanic, or The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay. London: Bloomsbury.
Wittgenstein, L. 1967. Philosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.
Woodson, D. G. 2010. “‘Failed’ States, Societal ‘Collapse,’ and Ecological ‘Disaster’”. In Questioning Collapse, P. A. McAnany & N. Yoffee (eds), 269–98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Young, S. 2002. Great Failures of the Extremely Successful: Mistakes, Adversity, Failure and Other Steppingstones to Success. Los Angeles, CA: Tallfellow Press.
Zerzan, J. 2002. Running on Emptiness: The Pathology of Civilization. Los Angeles, CA: Feral House.
Index
akrasia 13, 20, 56, 99, 109, 114; see also weakness of will
Ananke 11
anomie 22
anthropathology 12, 29, 36
Aristotle 13, 24, 26, 49–50, 80, 111
Arrangement, The 119
atheism 58, 73
Augustine 22, 75
Auster, P. 78–9
authenticity 27, 137–8
bad faith 26
basic fault 28, 36
Beckett, S. 8, 78, 91
Benatar, D. 35, 41, 99, 123
Benjamin, W. 18, 31, 77
Bentall, R. 71
Berlin, I. 30
birth 33
black box 6
Bohm, D. 114, 140
Bourdieu, P. 103–4
Broome, J. 128
Buddhism 8, 13, 19, 51, 59
Bukowski, C. 85, 109
business failure 4, 124–5, 127
Camus, A. 8, 43, 69–70, 83–4
capitalism 4, 63, 65
catastrophe 28, 58, 60
Chomsky, N. 62–3
Christian Science 122
Cioran, E. M. 8, 35, 55
Clarkson, P. 138
climate change 67–8, 74, 134
Complete History of my Sexual Failures, A 91–2
Corradi Fiumara, G. 114
coupledom 41, 46, 70–71, 93
criminals 43
Critchley, S. 7, 91
death 19, 52–4
Death of a Salesman 82–3
de Botton, A. 95–6
depression 33
Descartes, R. 30
diagesis 1
Dick, P. K. 126
Dienstag, J. F. 123
Diogenes 3, 75, 97, 130
Drees, W. 12
Dunn, J. 66–7
Eliot, T. S. 32, 81–2
Ellis, A. 106
Enlightenment, the 25
entropy 4, 5, 28, 70, 130–31
Epicurus 9, 49
evolutionary psychology 15
existentialism 9, 26
failed states 62–3
failure
aesthetic 21, 47
biological 19
co native 20
of constancy 19
empathic 20, 117
epistemological 21
of meaning and purpose 22
mechanical 19
moral 20–21, 29, 61, 67, 112–13
philosophy of 29
science of 134
social and interpersonal 20, 46
style 62
to thrive 32
of universe 55
upside of 129
Fall, the 22, 110
fallenness 26, 78
fallibility 10, 28, 50
flaws 11, 28
Fowles, J. 116
fragility 50
Freud, S. 36
Fromm, E. 118
Gandhi, M. 118
Gardiner, S. 68
Gates, B. 118
Gaugin, P. 87
Graham, G. 17
Greenwood, W. 84
hamartia 13, 24, 77
Heidegger, M. 26, 27, 52, 140
history 59–60
Hitler, A. 24
Hobbes, T. 65
Homer-Dixon, T. 131
Houellebecq, M. 21
Hughes, H. 107–8
Humbling, The 85–6
Jacobs, J. 101
Job 47
Kangō Gumi 141
karma 10
Kierkegaard, S. 27, 102–3
kluge 16, 57, 64, 73, 128, 140
Krishnamurti, J. 25, 140
Lacan, J. 126
language 12, 18, 30, 64, 123–4
Larkin, P. 36
Le Feuvre, L. 86–7
Leigh, M. 92
Levinas, E. 9
Lyotard, J-F. 130
Machiavelli, N. 65
MacIntyre, A. 25
Marcus, G. 16, 73
Marcuse, H. 11, 85
Marx, K. 65, 69
Maxwell, N. 27
McIntyre, L. 27
mediocrity 3
Merleau-Ponty, M. 51
midlife 44
Mishima, Y. 50–51
moral luck 9, 47
Moriarty, M. 22
Mulhall, S. 23
nemo 116
Nietzsche, F. 77, 110, 122
nihilism 22
non-being 26
old age 48–52
original sin 12, 23, 59, 75
parenting, as fallible 36, 42
parrhēsia 75
Piaget, J. 40
Picasso, P. 87–8
Plato 3, 11, 61, 65, 76, 111
Poole, A. 77–8
postmodernism 13
psychotherapy 105–6, 136–8
Radcliffe Richards, J. 109
rational emotive behaviour therapy 106
religion 13, 57–9, 104–5
Ricoeur, P. 30 Roberts, J. 9, 32
Sartre, J.-P. 25, 34, 100, 113, 116
scepticism 121
school 37–9, 103–4
Schopenhauer, A. 7, 15, 26, 34, 49, 70
science 14, 120–21
seven deadly sins 23
sin 24
Smith, R. R. 34
Socrates 24, 99–100
Songe-Møller, V. 111
Spengler, O. 59–60
stigma 2, 46, 104
Stoics, Stoicism 76, 78, 106, 123
suicide 35, 51,70, 98–9, 120, 138
Taylor, G. 24
Titanic 108
Tolstoy, L. 83
Toole, J. Y. 89
Toynbee, A. 60
tragedy 76
Van Gogh, V. 87
weakness of will 17, 56; see also akrasia
Weatherill, R. 137
Whatever Works 133
Wilkinson, R. & Pickett, K. 63–4
Wittgenstein, L. 31, 75, 108
Wollstonecraft, M. 65
work 42, 68–70
Yalom, I. 139
Zerzan, J. 64
Žižek, S. 144